Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Dems Take Senate and SOL REform

This
day is notable for me for two reasons, and I'll add another.My eldest daughter, who has brought
immeasurable joy to my life, was born on this date 38 years ago.On this date in 1986 the door of an elevator
in the General Assembly building opened, Delegate Purkey stepped on and told me
the Challenger had crashed.I knew the
Christa McCauliffe, who I had gotten to know through NEA, was on board.And today, control of the Virginia Senate
changed.All on January 28th.

VEA’s
successful efforts in the elections of Senators Lynwood Lewis and Jennifer Wexton
resulted in a 20-20 tie and the Senate, and the VEA recommended Lieutenant
Governor Northam is the tie breaker.The
take-over was tedious and contentious, and it took hours.However, the result is a reshuffling of all
the Senate Committees.The most
important to VEA are Senate Education and Health.Below are the new committees.Those removed are struck through and new
members are in bold:

On
the House side, let’s look at what happened in the House Subcommittee on
Education REform (I think we should all pronounce the word as they do in the
movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, with the stress on the first syllable.Delegate Greason convened a meeting of the
subcommittee for the purpose of discussing the 11 SOL REform bills before the
subcommittee.The meeting was for the
purpose of discussing the topic of SOL REform, and no action was to be taken on
the bills.These bills fit into four
categories:expedited retake, data
revision and release, reducing the number of tests, and substituting industry
certifications for SOL tests.

In
his introductory remarks, Delegate Greason indicated his three priorities:

1.Reduction in the number of tests from 34 to 25
or 26 to "give teachers breathing room" and to increase the time for
instruction.Greason emphasized that if
we drop a science test, we will not be deemphasizing science instruction.

2.Improve
- that we should improve the quality of the tests to shift to more critical
thinking, problem solving and application of knowledge.

3.Evolve
by implementing authentic assessment to replace SOL testing.

The
meeting afforded all of the stake-holder groups, including VEA President Meg
Gruber, to discuss the bills.

The
best tweet of the day was from Ashley Bauman:“Well the #VASenateShowdown is still going on despite the impending doom
of #Polarvortexx3. #Snowpocalypse